The survivors of the world's worst-ever industrial disaster have
suffered from two days of horror and two decades of apathy. Read
their stories below.

If you would like to contact any of these
survivors, please contact the Sambhavna
Clinic.

Rashida
Bee & Champa Devi ShuklaTwo gas survivors and trade
unionists turned Bhopal activists who have ignited the international
campaign to seek justice for disaster survivors. Since 1984 Bee
has lost six family members to cancer. Shukla, who has one grandchild
born with congenital deformities, lost her husband and her health.
Bee and Shukla’s courage and tenacity have galvanized the
grassroots in their own country and abroad. In the process, they’ve
drawn low-income, illiterate women like themselves from the margins
of society to the center of a closely watched showdown whose endgame
is to hold Dow Chemical accountable for the gas leak and its deadly
legacy. Since their campaign began with a 580
km march to New Delhi in 1989, seeking justice, Rashida and
Champa have traveled the globe. Their efforts were honored with
the Goldman Environmental
Prize, known as the "Nobel Prize for the environment"
in 2004.

Rashida
& Champa #2 Two gas survivors and trade
unionists turned Bhopal activists who have ignited the international
campaign to seek justice for disaster survivors. Since 1984 Bee
has lost six family members to cancer. Shukla, who has one grandchild
born with congenital deformities, lost her husband and her health.
Bee and Shukla’s courage and tenacity have galvanized the
grassroots in their own country and abroad. In the process, they’ve
drawn low-income, illiterate women like themselves from the margins
of society to the center of a closely watched showdown whose endgame
is to hold Dow Chemical accountable for the gas leak and its deadly
legacy. Since their campaign began with a 580
km march to New Delhi in 1989, seeking justice, Rashida and
Champa have traveled the globe. Their efforts were honored with
the Goldman Environmental
Prize, known as the "Nobel Prize for the environment"
in 2004.

Razia Bee"We were sleeping peacefully that night.
I got up to find the children vomiting all over."

Raisa BeeShe died at 6.45 in the morning of 31st October,
1996 in the TB Hospital. She was four years old when she was severely
exposed to Carbide's toxic gases.

Ramesh"I was also trying to find our cow and found
her in a street coughing. My dog lay dead. Two of my friends Santosh
and Rajesh also had died."

Sajida "I remember everyone vomiting and groaning and
then joining the crowd of people who were trying to run away from
the clouds of poison."

Reshma"I have very painful periods. My mother has
to give me hot fomentation. Even with that the pain gets unbearable.
I dread my periods."

Hajra Bi "So we carried the children in our arms and
joined the surging crowd outside, all trying to get away. People
were running blindly. Many were falling down."

Shahabuddin"After I got exposed, for two years I was so
breathless I could not do any work."

Jewan Shinde "It felt like someone was burning chillies.
I got really scared and out of fear I opened the door. Outside everyone
was running, screaming, nothing could be seen - the thick fog hung
everywhere. It was clear that we were being poisoned."

Sharda Vishwakarma"All of us were coughing and vomiting and it
was getting more and more unbearable."

Jubeda Bi "We coughed and vomited all the way and our
clothes were soiled. My daughter Shabana was four years old and
she almost never stopped coughing since that night. She died after
seven years."

Zubeda Bi"I also no longer wear saris. A relative of
mine who was wearing a sari got thrown onto a pyre. She was just
unconscious. She woke up and ran. Since then no woman in my family
wears a sari."

Bano Bi"I believe that even if we have to starve, we
must get the guilty officials of Union Carbide punished. They have
killed someone's brother, someone's husband, someone's mother, someone's
sister – how many tears can Union Carbide wipe? We will get
Union Carbide punished. Till my last breath, I will not leave them."

Kahkashan "Sometimes I think it is better to die than
live with so much pain all the time."

Bhoori Bi"I had pain in my chest, my back, every joint
in my bones ached. It was so bad I could not walk even a small distance
and never could have a full nights sleep."

Kundan"I was just eight days old and still in the
hospital when the gas leaked. My father who was with me then, told
me, doctors put me in a glass box, but I still got gas in my eyes
and through my breath. My father also got hit by the gas."

Mohammed Karim"In some houses everyone had died so there was
no one to break the locks. In one case a 6 month old girl had survived
and everybody else (mother, father and siblings) was dead. I broke
the locks to that house."

Mangla Ram When a young doctor lifted his wife's hand to feel
her pulse, it was already stiff and cold. The doctor covered her
face with the sheet she was wrapped in and walked away.

Balaram Bai "My wife opened the door and immediately she
started coughing, her eyes began crying. She went out worrying about
the safety of our nephew in the next neighbourhood and calling out
the names of other children. She did not come back."

Mehboob BiShe mortgaged their house to get money for medicines
for her sick husband. He told her not to spend money on him; she
replied, ‘How can I not?’

Sunil KumarIn March 1997 he started "hearing voices in
his head" at night. He suffered from sleeplessness and imagined
that the voices were those of persons plotting to kill him or cause
him harm. These voices came to him even when he shut himself up
in a room.

Shahid NoorShahid was unable to see because his eyes
were swollen, so his uncle called him in front of his mother's dead
body and asked him to carry out a death ceremony which a son should
carry out for his mother at the time of her death. This was the
first time he had realized that his mother had died.

Chhote KhanBecause of the poison in the water all in my family
are sick. This is what keeps me worried all the time.

Naval SinghMy wife and children do not keep well; they always
feel tired and cannot do any work. Their stomach and heart burns
all the time, there is no appetite. They have rashes all over their
body and they keep scratching all the time. Because they do not
keep well they are not able to go for work, we earn very less. It
has become very difficult to carry on.

Mohammed Anwar Hasan SiddiqueI have severe backache. My eyes burn a lot. I also
suffer from breathlessness. I have to use an inhaler several times
in a day.

Mohammed SalimTwo years after i moved in to annu nagar i started
falling sick. I had severe pain on my side and had to be hospitalized.
i was admitted for three months in Jawahar Lal Nehru Hospital then
the doctors referred me to Hamidia Hospital. I worry about my wife
who remains sick often.

Shabir KhanI knew that the water in blue moon colony was poisoned,
it tasted very bad the first time I drank a sip. It was terrible
but I had to drink it for four or five months. Then I started falling
sick, vomiting and stomach ache and dizziness.

Bhaskar Dasgupta"Piles of dead buffaloes, extremely dusty air,
a sense of eerie desolation in some of the lanes where everybody
was dead. The lawns in front of the Gandhi Medical College were
covered with shrouded bodies. One very poignant scene I will never
forget, a child was sitting next to a shroud, pulling on the arm
and softly crying out, 'Mother, why aren’t you waking up?'"

Aziza
Sultan"Outside it appeared that a large number of
people had passed that way. Lots of shoes and shawls and other clothing
were strewn about. White clouds had enveloped everything. Streetlights
looked like points of light. Our family got split up."

Deepa
Pal"People who lived closer to the plant moved
in with relatives in our neighborhood. I saw people with immensely
swollen eyes, which were dripping constantly. They told us of their
stampede to escape the gas."

Jabbar
Khan"The government's attitude came as a big shock
to me. For a month people did not even get primary treatment. I
would say that in one month 8,000 people died because of inadequate
medical facilities."

Shakeel"When Shakeel was born he had a boil like thing
on his forehead. In 3-4 months his whole head was covered with boils.
His hair used to be stuck with pus. His head was slimy with pus."

Sumeet
Ajmani"My parents have told me numerous times about
how fortunate we were that the wind had changed direction before
much of the gas reached our house. However, there were many who
were not as lucky as us."

The Teenage Testimonies At least 200,000 children are estimated to have been
exposed to the gas, half of them girls. As they approach the age
when they should start menstruating, some girls find that they are
experiencing three or four cycles a month, others have only one
period in three months.

Razia BeeAGE: 40 years AGE AT DISASTER: 26 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Mangalwara, Bhopal

We were sleeping peacefully that night. I got up to find the children
vomiting all over. First I wondered whether it was some thing they
had for dinner. Then I too started vomiting. Soon all of us, my
husband and me carrying the children were running towards Lily Talkies.
My three year old daughter Nazma had swelled up so much like she
would burst. We took her to Hamidia hospital. We stayed with her
at the hospital for 15 days and then the doctors said she would
not survive. We were feeling so utterly helpless because there was
no doctor around who knew how my baby could be saved. She died on
the fifteenth day. My husband Rafique owned a watch repair shop.
After the gas he suffered the most in our family. He would need
to sit under a fan. His mouth stayed open and he had those violent
coughing bouts. Often he would cough blood. He was admitted to Hamidia
hospital for three weeks and then sent home. Soon after early one
morning at 3 am he started vomiting and it would not stop. So we
took him back to Hamidia. After a month of his being in the hospital
the docotrs said now take him home we can't do anything to help
your husband. I had bitter arguments with the doctors but finally
brought my husband home. Then a Red Cross hospital was set up near
our house. One month he took treatment there and then the doctor
there said these drugs are not doing you any good, you might as
well stop taking them. So I took him to the government's Shakir
Ali hospital but the treatment there did little good. Though we
were supposed to get free medicines the doctor there said if you
want to get better medicines you should buy them from the market.
One morning the doctor wrote a prescription and I worried all day
about where to get Rupees five hundred to but all the medicines.
My husband died the same evening at 4 o clock. Meanwhile we had
had to sell off the watch repair shop at a very low price. I went
to the claim court with my husband's medical papers but the officials
there said you have to get the "04 form" filled. They
told me to come later in December ('92) But by then the city was
aflame with Hindu-Muslim riots. I was not able to receive any compensation
for my husband's death nor for my daughter Nazma's. My daughter
Salma developed strange symptoms. She would itch all over her body
and get round blue marks as big as a rupee coin. I took her to Hamidia
then to Shakir Ali where they told me to take her to Indore. Bu
then she was in a very bad state. She had high fever and her tear
drops were red coloured. Also she complained of her head aching
all the time. I took her to the government hospital in Jehangirabad
where even after four months of regular treatment there was no improvement
in her condition. Then I took her to a private clinic. They told
me right in the begining that Salma's treatment will be long and
expensive. I had no money left so I brought my daughter back. But
then her condition worsened and I went back to the private clinic.
At the end of her treatment Salma was only slightly better and I
was in debt for Rs 50, 000. Till today we have not been abler to
pay back all the money. Finally Salma got treated at the Sambhavna
clinic where with Ayurvedic treatment she got much better. I too
have been very sick after the gas. I do not remember falling sick
before the gas. To keep the home fire going I did all kinds of jobs-
sweeping, washing dishes and every kind of hard labour. My vision
is blurred, I loose my balance while walking, I get very breathless
and get panic attacks. When I tell my problems to the doctors at
the government hospitals they say you are just making all these
up. None of my children could study. Only my daughter Sazida has
passed eigth grade in the government school. The school is supposed
to be free but the teachers find ways to get money from the students.

She died at 6.45 in the morning of 31st October, 1996 in the TB
Hospital. She was four years old when she was severely exposed to
Carbide's toxic gases. In the interview her mother gave she recalled
"That night my little daughter was vomiting all over the place
and soiling her clothes over and over. She was coughing and gasping
for breath and crying that her eyes were on fire.. She was very
ill for over a week and we thought the worst was over. A few months
later her problems worsened and she would get acutely breathless
and bring out sputum when she coughed. She continued to have burning
sensation in the eyes. She got weaker and weaker and was wheezing
all the time. She lost her appetite for food and stayed depressed
all the time. Then we spotted streaks of blood in her sputum. We
took her to different doctors and hospitals but her condition did
not improve. She vomited a lot of blood before she died." The
medical records available with her mother show that Raisa was admitted
at the JLN Hospital on 7.8.'96 for 20 days with complaints of breathlessness,
cough and anxiety attacks. Chest x-ray report dated 30.10.'96 from
the TB Hospital mentions "Bilateral infiltration with cavity
formation left mid zone".

All three doctors in the assessment panel in the Sambhavna Clinic's
Verbal Autopsy project have opined that Raisa's death is attributable
to her exposure to Carbide's gases and the injuries caused to her
respiratory and neuropsychiatric systems. In their opinions tuberculosis
was a complication that arose out of the injury caused to her lungs.

RameshA student and apprentice at a tailor's shop,
Ramesh was 12 years old in December 1984 and living in Jai Prakash
Nagar.

The day before the gas leaked was a Sunday. My friends and I were
relaxing in the evening and then we watched a movie on the television.
I must have gone to sleep around 9 p.m. It was cold and I had covered
myself with a rug. Sometime in the middle of the night I heard a
lot of noise coming from outside. People were shouting "Get
up" “Run, run" "gas has leaked". My elder
brother Jawahar got up and said " Everyone is running away,
we too must run". I opened my eyes and saw that the room was
full of white smoke. The moment I removed the rug from my face my
eyes started stinging as if someone was burning a lot of dried chilies
and every breath was burning my insides. I was scared of opening
my eyes. The gas was getting in through my mouth. Through my nose.
We got ready to run. All six of us, my brothers and sister came
out together with my sister carrying my youngest brother Rajesh
in her arms. My father refused to leave and my mother stayed with
him. So we left them in the house and ran towards the cremation
ground.

After a while my sister who was carrying my little brother got
separated. The gas was thick and we couldn't see where they had
gone. The four of us left, held on to each other's hand and walked
on. While running Mahesh and I fell into a ditch full of dirty water.
As we reached the main road we could see a lot of people lying around.
We did not know whether they were dead or unconscious. One fellow,
Gupta, was sleeping with a rug over him. Mahesh crawled under the
rug with him and that fellow made place for the rest of us. But
after a while as we could not breathe it got very uncomfortable
under the rug. So we got up and started walking towards the bus
stand. Near the wine shop we came across some bathrooms which were
closed. My brother kicked the door down and all of us got inside.
I covered my younger brother Mahesh and Suresh with my coat and
put them to sleep. My elder brother kept sitting outside looking
out for our parents. I asked him to come in but he was worried about
them and would not come in. He started vomiting outside. Some people
in the neighborhood gave him water. We were not talking to each
other just sitting and worrying about our parents. I did not know
that the gas could kill people but while running away I had seen
a little child crying beside his mother who was lying beside the
road. So all kinds of dreadful thoughts crossed my mind.

Early in the morning we set out for home. My eyes were swollen
and my chest was aching. On our way back we saw a lot of dead cattle
lying around and a lot of people too. My brother could not walk.
So Mahesh and I held both his hands and pulled him along. Nearer
home I saw my friend Santosh’s grandfather lying dead. Balmukund,
our neighbour was dying and they rushed him to the hospital. My
uncles who also live in a basti in Bhopal had heard about the gas
leak and came looking for us. They were worried about what they
would find. But they found us all alive. As I was going with my
uncle to buy jaggery, on the way to the shop I saw a lot of dead
bodies of men, women and children lying in front of the Union Carbide
factory gate. I was also trying to find our cow and found her in
a street coughing. My dog lay dead. Two of my friends Santosh and
Rajesh also had died. Then my uncle took all of us to their home
which is fifteen kilometers away. We sat under a tree and all the
people in the locality came over to look at us. Then people from
amongst them arranged to have us taken to the hospital.

SajidaAGE: 20 years AGE AT DISASTER: 6 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Near Military Gate, Shahajahanabad

I was in the first grade at the time of the gas disaster. I remember
being woken up by people in my family. I remember everyone vomiting
and groaning and then joining the crowd of people who were trying
to run away from the clouds of poison. Since then my problem of
breathlessness has been getting worse, my eye problems are also
getting worse and now everything appears blurry. I am also getting
more and more weak. I was very keen on studying but I failed my
exams in the eigth grade. I was very sick at the time of the examination.
I told my teacher that I could not write my exams because of my
illness but she refused to take my application for leave of absence.

So I failed and that was the end of my studies. I have never stopped
regretting this. When I see other women pursuing their studies I
wish I had continued. Since I was a child I wanted to do something
important, become someone famous and I still can not accept that
none of my wishes will ever come true. Now I spend most of my time
doing chores at home and some embroidery work with "zari".
My eyes go blurred when I work with "zari".

Its been over 10 years since I have been so sick. I have been admitted
to the hospital several times. My elder brother Rayees used to be
so breathless, he had to sit through the whole night. His lungs
were badly damaged. He died four years back. He died in the hospital.
I think of him often and and the one thing I feel really bad about
is that I was not there by his side when he died. My father owned
a truck and three auto-rickshaws. He sold them one by one to pay
for Rayees' medical bills. Now my father rents an autorickshaw for
the day and our family survives on what he makes.

For the last one month he has been sick in bed and I am taking
care of household expenses through my "zari" work. My
mother Aneesa too is sick.She is breathless has chest pain and pain
in the stomach and she has swelling in her limbs. She has a fever
that never leaves her.

I was two years old at the time of the disaster. Most of what I
know about it is from what my mother has told me. We used to live
in Quazi Camp then. My mother tells me, when the gas struck her
she thought some warehouse that stored chillies, had caught fire.
The room we were sleeping got full of gas. All of us my mother ,
father my little brother Mubeen who was only eight months old and
me all were coughing and vomiting and we could not open our eyes.
My mother threw away the covers because she was feeling so hot.
Outside people were shouting "Run Run" and their was the
noise of lots and lots of people running past our door. My mother
wanted all of us to join the crowd that was running away towards
the city. But my father stopped her, he said if we die, we all die
together. So my mother held on to Mubeen and me and sat next to
the open door thinking the wind will carry out the gas. Instead
more gas got in . My mother says her throat got so choked she could
not even cry out and groan. Father was huddled in one corner. Mubeen's
stomach had swollen like it would burst. In the morning our uncle
took us to the hospital and for eight days I had a bandage over
my eyes. That's what my mother tells me. She says next morning the
beds, clothes, walls and every thing else in the house was covered
with an oily film.

I study in 10th standard at the Government Girls School. I like
maths best because it makes me think, use my head. Other subjects
one can pass just by cramming but not maths.I want to be a lawyer
when I grow up and I hope my parents don't get me married before
I become one. When I am doing maths or reading a book I have to
stop every few minutes because I my eyes begin to hurt and they
water. As far as I remember I have always had pain and burning in
my eyes. Some times I get black outs. Also some times like even
when I am walking, all of a sudden I feel panicky. Breathing becomes
difficult and there is a pounding in my heart. I have to sit down.
I have very painful periods. My mother has to give me hot fomentation.
Even with that the pain gets unbearable. I dread my periods.

Hajra BiAGE: 35 years AGE AT DISASTER: 21 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Ayub Nagar

I still remember the night the gas leaked. I was sleeping with
my three children Nazma, Shareef and Iqbal beside me. I woke up
with a panic because it felt like some one was choking me. The room
was filled with pungent smoke. I thought some one was burning chillies
to ward off the evil eye. The smoke got heavier and heavier. My
husband and children too got up and started coughing. The children
were groaning that they could not bear it. So we carried the children
in our arms and joined the surging crowd outside, all trying to
get away. People were running blindly. Many were falling down. By
then my eyes had become so swollen that I could hardly open them.
I had my dupatta covering my eyes. I was carrying four year old
Nazma and my husband was carrying Shareef who was six and Iqbal
who was two years old. I had gone a little distance when Nazma started
making gurgling and choking sounds. I pried my eye lids open and
saw there was froth coming out of her mouth. I looked around but
could not find my husband. So I went inside the nearest house I
could spot and asked for some water for Nazma to drink. At around
2 in the morning my sister's husband who was on duty at the Union
Carbide factory came looking for us. He too was in a bad condition.
He told me not to stay in the house because the gas was still leaking
and it was getting thicker and thicker inside the house. But I could
not go anywhere so I spent the night with the family. In the morning
my eldest brother came to fetch me. He took me to the dispensary
at the Carbide factory. There they put some drops in my eyes, that's
all. My husband who had been looking for me with the children also
reached my brother's place. After four days we went back to our
own home. The children could not keep any food in, they were vomiting
all the time. My eldest son Shareef died after three months. We
tried everything to save his life. Took him to different doctors,
spent a lot of money but he didn't survive. Three months after that
I gave birth to a son. We named him Yosouf. He was born sickly and
had strange looking yellow coloured eruptions on his neck. When
he was about a year old, I was still breast feeding him, he died
in his sleep. Another daughter was born to me - Shahbano. She too
was sick all the time, we lost her too. My son Iqbal is not growing
properly, he is 16 years old now but looks like he is 10 or 12.
My husband used to carry cement bags before the gas, but he hasn't
been able to work. Both of us have this burning in the chest. We
went to different private clinics as long as our savings lasted.
Doctors charged 50 to 100 rupees for every visit. When we had no
money left we had to go the government hospitals. But visiting government
hospitals was so tiring and it seemed like a waste of time. The
doctors there would write down the medicines we were supposed to
take before we even finished telling them about our problems. The
tablets they gave me made me feel worse.

In my family I am the only one to get any compensation. I got Rs
15,000/-. We spent much more than that on our treatment. I sold
off all my jewellery when my son got admitted to the hospital. Also
we borrowed a lot of money for our treatment. When I told the judge
about our children who died he said I had to get documentary evidence.

All of us in the family remain sick. My husband has spells of unconsciousness.
He has also become very irritable and some times gets violent. We
could not send our children to school because there was no money.
My daughter was so keen to go to school. I worry myself all the
time - about my husband, my son's health, my daughter's marriage.

I am feeling much better since I have started taking treatment
at Sambhavna. But it is a long walk and some times I can not make
it on the appointed day.

ShahabuddinAGE: 38 years AGE AT DISASTER: 24 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Quazi Camp

I used to work as a load carrier before the gas. After I got exposed,
for two years I was so breathless I could not do any work. Also
I would get these sudden panic attacks out of nowhere. I had itching
on my whole body and when I scratched I got eruptions all over.

About a month back I got this severe pain in my left leg. There
would be a dull pain starting from my waist down till my foot. It
would get intense all of a sudden with the pain traveling up and
down the back of my leg. There was no way I could work, I could
not even walk. Even going to the toilet was difficult. For five
nights in a row I could not sleep properly. The pain kept me awake.
I took all kinds of pills but nothing worked. Then the doctor at
the Sambhavna Clinic told me to take Panchakarma therapy. It has
been 20 days since I have been taking this treatment and am feeling
much better. I can walk with ease though there is still slight pain.
I have also started going to work since the last five days. I am
not taking any medicines.

Jewan ShindeAGE: 46 years AGE AT DISASTER: 32 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Teela Jamalpura

I used to be an autorickshaw driver and around 12.30a.m on the
night of the disaster I was driving through Bharat Talkies going
towards home. I suddenly started feeling really hot. At that time
I could not see any signs of the gas or the turmoil of afterwards.
I got home and went to sleep not thinking anything more. Around
2.30a.m I suddenly awoke to find that my quilt was on the floor
despite it being a winters night. Outside there was screaming and
shouting of 'bhago, yaha se bhago'. ("Run, run away from here".)
There used to be a food inspector who lived opposite our house and
I could hear his voice outside. From inside the house I shouted
asking him what was going on. He shouted back that gas had leaked
from Carbide and that I should not open the door. By this time smoke
had started seeping through from under the door. That was when the
coughing started. I, my wife and my two sons (aged 4 & 6 at
that time) felt as if we were choking.

It felt like someone was burning chillies. I got really scared
and out of fear I opened the door. Outside everyone was running,
screaming, nothing could be seen - the thick fog hung everywhere.
It was clear that we were being poisoned - the stench of rotting
potatoes was strong. I took my family to the landlords house who
stayed one door away. The gas filled their house also. 14 people,
my family and my landlord's family then all climbed into my autorickshaw
and I started going towards new market. I, by mistake took the wrong
road - instead of going towards the cantonement, I headed through
Qazi Camp. Everywhere there were people running, vomiting, men and
women wearing almost nothing. The cloud still hung thick. Many people
tried stopping the auto and begged for space, but what could I do?
Driving through Qazi camp I started to feel faint and I thought
I would lose consciousness. My landlords wife, Rama Devi kept saying
'himat rakho, is gadi ko bahar nikalna hai'. ("Have courage,
we've got to get this vehicle out of here".)

Terror had filled me from within. Street lamps looked as if they
were dim candles burning. Peoples screams and shouts dulled by the
thickness of the gas fog. By the time we made it to Kamla Park it
seemed the gas was over. I then took my family to South T.T Nagar
where someone known to Rama Devi lived.

I then tied a wet muffler over my mouth and went back into the
city to find out what had happened. If I had known how poisonous
the gas was then I would not have gone. I can not tell you what
state people were in. Almost undressed. I saw an old woman at the
government offices in a sari blouse and shorts just sitting. Bodies
strewed the streets.

At around 4a.m a man stopped me and asked me to take him to the
station. I told him that all trains had stopped. But he insisted.
We got to the station. Five corpses lay on Platform five. The man
saw this and ran.

All night I roamed in my auto. Picking up as many people as I could,
those who fell against my auto and dropped them wherever I could.
The roads were full of people. The stampede of the dead and living.
Police vans were roaming blaring 'evacuation.' I saw a dead buffalo,
twice the usual size. Its tail stuck straight up into the air.

At around 6 a.m. I madeit back to my house in Teela Jamalpura.
The whole colony was desolate, apart from a few people who had not
run. Most of them were vomiting outside their own homes. I opened
the door of my house and thick gas started coming out. I left the
door open and ran again.

I made it back to South T.T Nagar where my family was. By the time
I got home my eyes were swollen and were red like tomatoes. By 10.30
that morning I took my wife and children and went back home. I will
never forget what I have seen.

Sharda VishwakarmaAGE: 24 years AGE AT DISASTER: 10 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Teela Jamalpura

I was ten years old when the gas leaked. In our neighbourhood there
was a house where snakes had built their nest. The people in the
house used to burn chillies to drive away the snakes. On the night
of the gas when all of us woke up coughing and gasping for breath,
the first thought that came to our mind was that it was the snake
cure gone awry. We opened the door and saw a great number of people
all rushing past. Soon we came to know that it was gas coming from
Union Carbide's factory. My father said " Lets not run away,
because we will surely get separated from each other in this crowd
and darkness. If we have to die at least let us die together".
All of us were coughing and vomiting and it was getting more and
more unbearable. My grandparents had come for a visit, they too
were in a miserable state. We opened the door after about four hours.
In the morning we went to a tent that had been set up on the roadside
and got some medicines from there - eye drops and pills. But these
were of no use. My four year old sister Asha died three days after
the gas.

My father used to work in a sweet shop making sweets. Ever since
the gas he can hardly work. There are times when he thrashes about
all night like a fish out of water. Most days he stays in bed. My
grandfather used to get very breathless and cough a lot. he suffered
this for four years till he died.

I got married when I was seventeen. My husband used to live in
the same neighbourhood. He is a carpenter but can work for hardly
fifteen days in a month. He has cough, pain in the chest and can
not see properly. He was not given any compensation because he could
not present his medical records. During the Hindu-Muslim riots of
1992 his parents' house caught fire and all the papers got burnt.
My parents could not get any compensation for the death of my sister
and grandfather. The judge asked for papers, but who was thinking
of papers three days after the disaster. The officials said that
my grandfather did not live in Bhopal and we had to provide documents
to show that he was with us on the night of the disaster.

Jubeda BiAGE: 48 years AGE AT DISASTER: 34 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Sayeed Nagar

On the night of the disaster I had come with my husband and children
to join a feast at my brother's place at Quazi Camp. We were coughing
badly and I thought we will die. Then we found an auto rickshaw
and the driver took us to Jehangirabad. We coughed and vomited all
the way and our clothes were soiled. My daughter Shabana was four
years old and she almost never stopped coughing since that night.
She died after seven years. She used to get breathless and had pain
in her stomach. No medicine worked. We spent so much money on the
treatment of my daughter and husband there was hardly any left for
other expenses. My husband too died with similar problems. My son
Mehfooz Khan, thank the Lord, is physically okay. But something
has happened inside his head. He is sixteen now but does not do
any thing just sits in one place all day like he is lost somewhere.
My other son Majid was one year old at the time of the gas. He has
stomach problems all year round. A daughter, Rehana was born to
me four years after the gas but strangely she has similar problems
like us. She has fever all the time and her limbs get stiff and
has spells of vomiting.

The gas has changed our lives in so many ways. After my husband's
death I started working as a house maid. I get only 100 rupees a
month but they give me food too. Earlier we would have new clothes
more than once a year, now we get to wear new clothes once in two-three
years. The children used to go to private schools buying new books
every year. Now my son goes to a government school and there is
no money to buy books.

I am really tired of taking medicines. Every time I take some pills
in my hand I get in to a panic that I have to put them in my mouth.
Even otherwise I get sudden panic attacks. My knees hurt a lot and
my back aches all the time. I went to the government hospital and
took treatment for a month there. But it didn't do me any good.
Then my sister told me to go to Sambhavna Clinic. At Sambhavna I
was treated with massage therapy. Now I can walk freely, though
I am yet to be able to lift any weight. I am till under treatment
and am hopeful that I will get alright without having to take any
medicines.

Zubeda BiAGE: 60 years (she thinks) AGE AT DISASTER: About
46 years NEIGHBORHOOD: Qazi Camp

We had had a normal evening at home. I, my four daughter-in laws,
my five sons and my daughter. We'd eaten and then gone to sleep.
I was the one who woke first. I lay alone in my room and started
getting irritated that maybe my daughter-in-laws were burning chillies
on the stove. I started shouted and swearing at them. I went to
the kitchen where I saw the stove was cold. By this time all my
sons and daughter-in-laws had been woken up by my shouting. Smoke
started to fill everywhere. Outside people were running and shouting
'bhago, bhago'. ("Run, run".) We found out from people
around that there had been a leak from carbide. We couldn't see
anything, we were coughing and kept having loose motions. My grandson
was one years old then. I put him on my chest to protect him as
much as possible. But his face swelled to twice its size, his eyes
were puffed tight. We were really scared. My daughter-in-law was
pregnant then. I could not tell her how deformed her son had become.
We thought we were going to die. I kept praying 'Allah miah hame
bacha lijiye, Allah miah hame bacha lijiye.' ("Dear God, please
save us, dear Lord, please save us.")

Pretty soon I felt weak and within half an hour I began to pass
out. My daughter-in-laws put water on me and tried to get me dressed.
They managed to put me in a petticoat. By now, there was so much
smoke in the house that we couldn't even see the pots.

Two of my sons had gone to see what had happened. The smaller one
was sent back with a message that we should go towards DIG bungalow
because there was no gas there. My eyes were now so swollen that
I couldn't see out of them. So about an hour after I first felt
the gas, we left the house, my daughter-in-laws held me by the hands.
The streets were full of corpses. The skins of people were full
of blisters. Nobody could be recognised.

We made it to DIG bungalow and then went and sat outside the factory.
Many people were there in the same state that we were in. We all
just thought of saving ourselves. We stayed there all night and
in the morning some doctors came and gave us some red medicine.
The military trucks came and took us to 'bara sau pachas' ("1250")
to the camp.

My daughter who lived near the station sat outside her house with
her 20 day old son. She sat there not moving whilst someone came
and stole her silver anklet. My son died one month later.

Look at the state of me now. I can't do anything. There has been
so much sickness from the gas. I also no longer wear saris. A relative
of mine who was wearing a sari got thrown onto a pyre. She was just
unconscious. She woke up and ran. Since then no woman in my family
wears a sari. We figure that if something else happens to us we
should at least be sent off in the proper way (Zubeda Bi is muslim
and would wish to be buried). Otherwise people might think we were
Hindus and cremate us.

Bano BiBano Bi was a 35 year old housewife living in
Chhawani, Managlwara the night of the gas disaster.

The night the gas leaked, I was sewing clothes sitting next to
the door. It was around midnight. The children's father had just
returned from a poetry concert. He came in and asked me, "what
are you burning that makes me choke?" And then it became quite
unbearable. The children sleeping inside began to cough. I spread
a mat outside and made the children sit on it. Outside we started
coughing even more violently and became breathless. Then our landlord
and my husband went out to see what was happening. They found out
that some gas had leaked. Outside there were people shouting, "Run,
run, run for your lives."

We left our door open and began to run. We reached the Bharat Talkies
crossing where my husband jumped into a truck full of people going
to Raisen and I jumped into one going towards Obaidullahganj. It
was early morning when we reached Obaidullahganj. The calls for
the morning prayers were on. As we got down, there were people asking
us to get medicines put on our eyes and to get injections. Some
people came and said they made tea for us and we could have tea
and need not pay any money.

Meanwhile, some doctors came there. They said the people who are
seriously ill had to be taken to the hospital. Two doctors came
to me and said that I had to be taken to the hospital. I told my
children to come with me to the hospital and bade them to stay at
the hospital gate till I came out of the hospital. I was kept inside
for a long time and the children were getting worried. Then Bhairon
Singh, a Hindu who used to work with my husband, spotted the children.
He too had run away with his family and had come to the hospital
for treatment. The children told him that I was in the hospital
since morning and described to him the kind of clothes I was wearing.

Bhairon Singh went in to the hospital and found me among the piles
of the dead. He then put me on a bench and ran around to get me
oxygen. The doctors would put the oxygen mask on me for two minutes
and then pass it on to someone else who was in as much agony as
I was. The oxygen made me feel a little better. The children were
crying for their father so Bhairon told them that he was admitted
to a hospital in Raisen. When I was being brought back to Bhopal
on a truck, we heard people saying that the gas tank has burst again.
So we came back and went beyond Obaidullahganj to Budhni, where
I was in the hospital for three days.

I did not have even a five paisa coin on me. Bhairon Singh spent
his money on our food. He even hired a taxi to take me back to Bhopal
to my brother's place. My husband also had come back by then. He
was in a terrible condition. His body would get stiff and he had
difficulty in breathing. At times, we would give up hopes of his
survival. My brother took him to a hospital. I said that I would
stay at the hospital to look after my husband. I still had a bandage
over my eyes. When the doctors at the hospital saw me, they said
"why don't you get admitted yourself, you are in such a bad
state." I told them that I was all right. I was so absorbed
with the sufferings of my children and my husband that I wasn't
aware of my own condition. But the doctors got me admitted and since
there were no empty beds, I shared the same bed with my husband
in the hospital. We were in that hospital for one and a half months.

After coming back from the hospital, my husband was in such a state
that he would rarely stay at home for more than two days. He used
to be in the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital most of the time. Apart from
all the medicines that he used to take at the hospital, he got medicines
like Deriphylline and Decadron from the store. He remained in that
condition after the gas disaster. I used to take him to the hospital
and when I went for the Sangathan meetings, the children took him
to the hospital. He was later admitted to the MIC ward and he never
came back from there. He died in the MIC ward.

My husband used to carry sacks of grain at the warehouse. He used
to load and unload railway wagons. After the gas, he could not do
any work. Sometimes, his friends used to take him with them and
he used to just sit there. His friends gave him 5-10 rupees and
we survived on that.

We were in a helpless situation. I had no job and the children
were too young to work. We survived on help from our neighbors and
other people in the community. My husband had severe breathing problems
and he used to get into bouts of coughing. When he became weak,
he had fever all the time. He was always treated for gas related
problems. He was never treated for tuberculosis. And yet, in his
post-mortem report, they mentioned that he died due to tuberculosis.
He was medically examined for compensation but they never told us
in which category he was put. And now they tell me that his death
was not due to gas exposure, that I can not get the relief of Rs.10,000
which is given to the relatives of the dead.

I have pain in my chest and I go breathless when I walk. The doctors
told me that I need to be operated on for ulcers in my stomach.
They told me it would cost Rs.10,000. I do not have so much money.
All the jewelry that I had has been sold. I have not paid the landlord
for the last six years and he harasses me. How can I go for the
operation? Also, I am afraid that if I die during the operation,
there would be no one to look after my children.

I believe that even if we have to starve, we must get the guilty
officials of Union Carbide punished. They have killed someone's
brother, someone's husband, someone's mother, someone's sister –
how many tears can Union Carbide wipe? We will get Union Carbide
punished. Till my last breath, I will not leave them.

KahkashanAGE: 20 years AGE AT DISASTER: 6 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Shobharam Ki Bawdi

I do embroidery work with my three sisters Shabana, Paribano and
Abida. We bring jobs home. Our eldest sister Farida used to work
with us too. She died in '93. She remained ill ever since the gas,
she used to cough a lot and complain there was burning in her chest
and pain all over her body. My father too is very ill. He is a tailor
but he can hardly work. Last week he fainted while at the sewing
machine. We had to rush him to the hospital. One of my brother sells
vegetables and one is a tailor. My brother Afaq has mental problems,
he gets irritable at the slightest thing and some times becomes
violent. We took him to the hospital several times but he was not
getting any better. They say we should take him to private clinics
but we don't have money for that.

My eyes burn a lot and I can't see properly. There is burning in
my chest and pain too. Sometimes I think it is better to die than
live with so much pain all the time. A year after the disaster,
I was seven then, I fainted in the middle of the road and a motorcycle
went over my head. But the army man who was riding the motorcycle
was a good man. He took care of my treatment. I was unconscious
for two months. My head still hurts at times. I also had a back
problem. For a long time I could not do any work, couldn't even
walk some distance. When the pain was too much to bear my mother
used to heat a brick and place it on my back, that and some light
massage would ease the pain for a while. She also took me to the
hospital. I had to take a handful of medicines and an injection
every day. The pain would be manageable as long as I took all these
medicines and if I stopped the pain would come back. Then one of
my aunts told me about the Sambhavna Clinic. The doctor at Sambhavna
told me to go for massage therapy. I am still on massage therapy
and most of the pain is gone. I can now walk freely and am able
to work. I don't have to take any medicines.

Bhoori BiAGE: 50 years AGE AT DISASTER: 36 years NEIGHBORHOOD:
Teela Jamalpura

After the gas I had aches all over my body. I had pain in my chest,
my back, every joint in my bones ached. It was so bad I could not
walk even a small distance and never could have a full nights sleep.
I went to so many private clinics and government hospitals. I can't
even remember all the places I went for treatment. Most places,
the medicines made no difference, in some they worked as long as
I took them. Then my neighbour who was taking treatment at Sambhavna
Clinic told me to give this clinic a try. Here they told me to go
for massage therapy. After a weeks massage I felt so much better.
Then they told me to learn and practice yoga. I am now doing various
asanas and pranayama too. Now I am able to move freely and for the
first time in many years I am enjoying sound sleep. Once I finish
learning yoga here I will continue with regular practice at home.

KundanAGE: 14 years AGE AT DISASTER: 8 days NEIGHBORHOOD:
Jai Prakash Nagar

I was just eight days old and still in the hospital when the gas
leaked. My father who was with me then, told me, doctors put me
in a glass box, but I still got gas in my eyes and through my breath.
My father also got hit by the gas. My mother and elder sister and
brother were at home. They did not run away, all night they stayed
under a thick quilt. My mother went out to see what the commotion
was all about and she got quite badly affected. She coughs all the
time and gets fever often. Her body aches and she has pain in her
hands and legs. My father has pain in his stomach. After the gas
I they kept me in the hospital for about 15 days then all of us
went to our village.

I study in fifth grade. Early this year I had gone to my grandmothers
place. We had gone for two months but then my uncle broke his leg
in an accident so we had to stay longer. When I came back they won't
take me back at school. I liked going to school. I used to study
Science, Hindi, Social Science and English. Most of all I liked
studying science because you learn about how the body works and
how things work. When I grow up I want to become a science teacher
or a doctor. Most of all I want to become a good man.

I like playing cricket. I think the Indian team is the best in
the world and Sachin Tendulkar is the very best. Azharuddin and,
Nayan Mongia and Saurav Ganguly are pretty good too. When I play
cricket I cant make many runs because I get breathless when I run
and my chest hurts. I would like to watch cricket on TV but I cant
because my eyes hurt and get filled with tears when I watch TV.
My eyes hurt when I read. My friends too have all kinds of health
problems. I have many friends but there are about ten with whom
I am closest.

We live right across the Carbide factory. So many people in our
community are sick. So many have died. And people are still dying
after they have been sick for a long time. People cant breathe properly,
they often have fever, aches and pain in their stomach. Men and
women have become weak. Lot of people can not go to work.

I do not know who is the owner of the factory. One of my neighbours
told me they used to make poisons to kill insects in the factory.
I think nobody should make poisons. Why kill insects, or rats or
any other living thing. They have their life and we have our own.
Why kill? The poisons from the factory have come into our drinking
water wells. There is poison all around.

Some people in my neighbourhood remind me that I stayed alive even
though I was so small while so many people died. They make it sound
like I brought on all this on the people. That makes me really sad.

I used to drive a truck to dispose of dirt and waste. My truck
was also a special truck - I used to pick up unclaimed dead bodies
from the mortuary, I was used to doing it. That night (3rd December
1984) I put in thousands of bodies that we dumped - in one grave
we would put 5-6 bodies, and we burnt piles and piles with logs.
Many bodies were burnt unindentified - Muslims were burnt and Hindus
were buried.

They (the govt.) said 'leave your wives and children in your houses
and go on duty'. We used to be on duty till 12:00 at night and after
that the military trucks used to come and dump the bodies in the
Narmada
river. This went on for three to four days. Even on the 16th (of
December 1984) we had to come back again. They gave us R500 for
this but then they took it back from our wages.

We would fit 120 bodies in one truck and this we would fill and
empty five times a day. There were eight trucks on duty (so that
is 4,800 bodies a day). It carried on for exactly the same intensity
for three to four days, and after 12:00 am the military took over.

We took a bulldozer and dug pits to bury all the animals. Some
people were picking up bodies and some animals. 50 - 60 drivers
were all working that day (3rd December). We picked up the bodies
with our own hands. Every time we picked one up it gave out gas.
The bodies had all turned blue, and had froth oozing from their
mouths.

In some houses everyone had died so there was no one to break the
locks. In one case a 6 month old girl had survived and everybody
else (mother, father and siblings) was dead. I broke the locks to
that house.

At least 15 - 20,000 people died in those first few days. What
they said in the papers was absolutely wrong. What could I have
done? I was a government servant. What the government said was absolutely
wrong but what could I do?

Those who have survived are like the living dead. My lungs have
become useless: till today I'm being looked after by Hamidia hospital.
Ever since I got affected I get vertigo - I would have to stop my
truck because I get vertigo if I drive. My hands and feet don't
work, I can't see well. The last two to three years I've gotten
much worse.

It was a sight that Mangla Ram will never forget. An entire settlement
was scampering out of their homes running southwest, towards the
city centre without really knowinq where to go or what to do. Many
collapsed on the way, some for ever. Children vomited blood. Pregnant
women stumbled and tell on the ground crying in pain and bleeding
profusely. With the grey clouds of death chasing them their fear
turned into panic. Relatives did not wait to pick up the bodies
of those they loved and were alive only moments ago. Children got
separated from their parents, husbands from their wives and brothers
from their sisters, in the mad rush to run away from the clouds.
Many were trampled to death. As a terrified and sick populace moved
forward, more people--the residents of neighboring Chola Road, Tilla
Jampaipura, Sindhi Colony, Railway Colony and Chandbad settlements--joined
them. The resourceful and the affluent had already fled in whatever
transport they could manage to secure. Only the poor were left behind…

[W]hen he arrived at the hospital it was 2:3 0 a.m. By then the
hospital had received more people than it could accommodate. All
or most of them were in a critical condition gasping for breath.
As Mangla Ram placed his wife on the steps at the entrance of the
hospital she hardly moved'. . . [Wlhen a young doctor lifted his
wife's hand to feel her pulse, it was already stiff and cold. The
doctor covered her face with the sheet she was wrapped in and walked
away.

Down the corridor so many corpses lay one next to the other that
Mangla Ram even forgot to weep.

On THAT NIGHT my wife was woken up by a commotion outside. She
opened the door of our jhuggi [a wretched hut] and immediately
she started coughing, her eyes began crying. She went out worrying
about the safety of our nephew in the next neighbourhood [which
was also in the line of the gas plume] and calling out the names
of other children. She did not come back.

I ran away taking our daughter with me and when we got back to
our jhuggi in the morning Maya wasn't there. I was in a
bad state myself and was admitted to a hospital. Our relatives looked
for Maya and finally found her after 15 days at the Hamidia hospital.
We brought her home. She had a lot of pain, but her worst problem
was breathlessness, she couldn't breathe after walking just a few
steps and she coughed a lot.

Her illness worsened from '86, she started blacking out. She took
treatment from the government's hospital for gas victims near DIG
Bangla crossing. She gave birth to two boys and two girls after
the disaster but they were all weak, none of the babies survived
beyond three months.

In 1988 she found to have pulmonary tuberculosis and admitted to
the TB hospital for 77 days. Later on she had to be admitted to
the DIG Bangla hospital and other government hospitals several times.
By then it was 1990. I spent quite a bit of money, all I could find,
on treatment at the hospitals but nothing helped.

By 1997 her condition had grown much worse. She started taking
treatment from Sambhavna. At first she was doing well but after
two years her condition took a bad turn. She began coughing blood
and next started having problems urinating.

We had to admit her again to hospital. Sambhavna people helped
us get her a bed in the Hamidia hospital. Her body had swollen all
over, her chest was hard as stone. On her last day our son Dinesh
was in the hospital with her. He came home and told me, "Papa,
mama died in her sleep." From THAT NIGHT Maya lived sixteen
years in pain. She died on 10th June, 2000. She was 55 years old.

I CALL HER MY ADOPTED MOTHER, she says I am her daughter and that
I’ll be there for her whenever she needs me. I just hope I
will be, but these days I’m far away in England & I can’t
stop worrying about her.

I first met Mehboob Bi when Tim and I were filming with the People’s
Tribunal – this is when she lived in her old house, it was
a lot better than the house she lives in now, but the moneylenders
took it.

She had mortgaged it to get money for medicines for her sick husband,
Chand Miya. He told her not to spend money oh him, she replied,
‘How can I not?’

Now she has moved to a corner of Qazi Camp to a house without a
roof. In the monsoon the rain comes right in. The house is beside
the stinking naala (an open sewage ditch). It was the only place
she could find. I went to see the Chief Minister to ask him for
some money for a new roof. He gave me 500 rupees, so I just spat
in the earth outside his house. After this Raghu Rai the photographer
and some others paid for a new roof.

Mehboob Bi, she has the most wonderful presence, looks straight
into your eyes like she knows the truth.

The film cameraman was being an asshole and Mehboob Bi began to
cry. I went and sat next to her and hugged her and cried with her.

She had just lost Chand, she was emotionally raw. You could see
the pain and feel it in her. Tim and I then took a French journalist
to her house. In the one room where everyone slept there was a goat
tied to the steel bed. When he offered her money she refused to
take it, so he left it under her pillow.

Mehboob Bi was married to Chand Miya. She did not belong to Bhopal.
When she arrived here life was really easy as Chand Miya was working
for Union Carbide.

‘We were so happy. We used to be well off, but my Kismet
was written in Bhopal.’ Even today when she speaks of Chand
tears roll from her eyes. She is so deeply wounded, so hurt. The
gas has taken everything.

From the first time I saw her to the time when I left for England
her face has weathered.

Her daughter, the youngest one was so beautiful and wild, she looked
a lot like her mother in the picture that Mehboob Bi shows so proudly
of her and her husband.

She showed us an album of her pictures from before her marriage.
She was stunning, dressed in short kurtas with big goggles, two
plaits and curls plastered to the sides of her cheeks. One of her
daughters said ‘Ammi looks like Mala Sinha.’ ‘No,’
said the other one, ‘she’s like Sadhna.’ (Both
Indian filmstars.)

‘Chal hat pagli ladki’. Go on with you silly
girl. That is what she said to her daughter with a coy smile.

When her daughters were small and there was no food Mehboob Bi
used to give them water at night to fill their stomachs. ‘Afterwards
I came to know that in many places the wells have been poisoned
by that factory, the same cursed place that tried to kill us all
with gas.’

So many years after the disaster Mehboob Bi suffers from serious
head aches, often faints and gets very high temperatures for which
there is no clear or obvious cause.

‘I am waiting, daughter,’ she tells me. ‘I am
just waiting to go. I’m so tired, but who will look after
these children then? The debt collectors will tear them apart, so
the least I can do is spare them from debt before I go.

‘My husband warned me how dangerous the chemicals were. If
by mistake you put your hand into them your hand would dissolve.

‘The day after the tragedy when we came back home our utensils
were covered with a green coating. Chand Miya did not let us come
in to the house he cleaned everything up, washed every corner of
the house before he let us come in.

‘The days just before the disaster were the last few days
I saw him happy. Our miseries began on that night. All of us had
breathed the gas, but he most of all. When he got really ill and
could no longer work . . . I . . . we ran short of money and I started
work for the first time. He apologised to me for putting me through
this.

Sunil was 13 years old at the time of the disaster in Bhopal. Along
with other members of the family he ran in panic after they were
surrounded by the poisonous cloud in the middle of the night. He
experienced burning sensation in the eyes and chest and cough. He
got separated from his family members ran for about 2 kms. and got
on to a bus going away from Bhopal . He vomited in the bus. About
70 kms. from Bhopal he got down at Hoshangabad. He lost consciousness
there and was taken to the district hospital. He was admitted in
to the hospital for one week during which his main complaints were
breathlessness, cough and burning sensation in the eyes. He returned
to Bhopal to find that both his parents, 3 sisters and 2 brothers
had died due to the poison gases. His younger siblings, sister aged
10 and brother aged 2 and half were the only living members of his
family. Since then he continues to suffer from breathlessness, tearing
in the eyes [lacrymation], breathlessness on exertion, amnesia and
nightmares still today, particularly in winter.

In March 1997 he started "hearing voices in his head"
at night. He suffered from sleeplessness and imagined that the voices
were those of persons plotting to kill him or cause him harm. These
voices came to him even when he shut himself up in a room.

By June 1997 his condition had aggravated. He started hearing voices
in the daytime too. His insomnia became worse. He started running
away from home to go to forests and open spaces. Even there the
voices chased him. In late 1998 he felt that his libido was diminishing.
He lost interest in sex and was not able to get a full erection.

In May 1998 he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and prescribed
drugs. According to him 75% of his problems are in control as long
as he is under medication but soon as he stops taking them, his
problems recur.

His current problems [whose severity depends on whether he is under
medication or not] include: "hearing voices", insomnia,
depression, suicidal thoughts [about once in a month], dis-attachment
from immediate surroundings, tendency to stay lying in bed for as
long as possible, need to avoid crowds and keep himself in a closed
room. He is always afraid that people around him are trying to cause
harm to him and that some one might kill him. When his condition
gets worse he is suspicious of everybody around him including relatives
and friends. There is no loss of appetite and except for an involuntary
twitch in his left arm [which he says started around the same time
as the beginning of his mental health problems] and seasonal aggravation
of exposure related symptoms, he has no other health problems.

Shahid was 8 and a half years old at the time of the disaster.
He lost his father, mother and one younger brother in the disaster’s
aftermath. Shahid's father used to work for Food Corporation of
India, which was a well-paid job, and also had his own business.
Shahid's father, Mohmammed Shakib, took young Shahid, his daughter,
father and sister to get treatment for their eyes and breathing
problems at JP Hospital. At that time Shahid's younger brother Wahid,
his mother Shana Bee, and infant brother Badsha were also missing.
They all were separated on night of 2nd Dec when they were all running
to escape the gas. After they returned from the hospital they found
Wahid (age 7) was back in the house. Someone had dropped him off.
Shahid's father took all the family members back to his village
on 3rd Dec afternoon in a maruti van. The condition of Shahid’s
father deteriorated as soon as they had reached the village. Others
were also having problems with their lungs and were unable to breathe.
All of them were taken to taken to Hoshangabad district hospital.
When they reached Hoshangabad hospital which is about 75km from
Bhopal, there was no room to admit anyone. They were all full with
people suffering from the effects of MIC. Except Shahid's father
everyone was released from the hospital within half hour with some
medication. Shahid and his family returned from the hospital. Shahid
was unable to see because his eyes were swollen, so his uncle called
him in front of his mother's dead body and asked him to carry out
a death ceremony which a son should carry out for his mother at
the time of her death. During the ceremony the son thanks his mother
for the nurturing she provided to him as a young infant. This was
the first time he had realized that his mother had died. That same
night he also found out that his father had also died because he
saw the dead body when it was brought to his house in village. Shahid
stayed with his family in the village for 10-15 days and on the
8th days he found out that his younger brother, Badsha, had also
died.

Until 1992 Shahid and his two remaining siblings lived with their
grandmother, but left when they learned that she considered them
a burden. They have fended for themselves since they were teenagers,
living on their compensation money. They put themselves through
high school.

The three children got compensation of three hundred thousand rupees.
Shahid and Wahid each got 66 thousand rupees and Nilofer got 33
thousand. The rest was paid to their grandmothers.

All the money that Shahid got was spent long ago on medicines to
try and cope with his personal injuries. He suffers from breathlessness,
weakness, numbness in hands and legs, periodic illness, and aches.

Shahid has always been active in the fight against Union Carbide.
In the beginning he was part of the group called "children
against Carbide", which consisted of all the children who had
lost their parents on the night of the disaster. In 1993 Shahid
organized 27 orphaned kids and started demanding employment from
the government. In 1994 their demands were accepted by Digvijay
Singh government, but even now nothing has been done for them except
fake promises. The group of orphans that Shahid organized is now
called Bhopal Ki Awaaz (Voice of Bhopal). In 2004, 4 members Bhopal
Ki Awaaz with the help of ICJB started their own source of income
generation project called Chirag. They rent out solar lanterns to
the vegetable, fruit hawkers and fish stalls for the evening. At
the end of the evening they collect a rent of Rs 8 for the day.
They have made more than Rs 60,000 in revenues and have 33 running
lanterns. He is also an active member of the International Campaign
for Justice in Bhopal.

The first demonstration I went to was on December 7, 1984. I went
from rajgarh colony. There were 50 people from my basti with us.
We went with Aybu bhai who was a bjp leader and anees bhai who was
the local congress party leader. There were 700 of us from jp nagar,
kainch chhola, chhola mandir, phoota maqbara. We went marching to
the chief minister’s residence. We demanded medical care because
there was no government arrangement for medical relief. We demanded
that the government take care of us, drive away the company and
punish the company. We demanded that the government should make
the company pay for the damages caused. Ayub Bhai and anees bhai
met with the chief minister who said he was making arrangements
for medical care but these turned out to be just empty promises.

Then on 16th December I and about two hundred others went on a
demonstration to the governor’s residence. Sathyu and others
in the zahareeli gas kand sangharsh morcha led that demo that went
to the governor’s residence. We demanded information on the
disaster and its health effects, once again we demanded medical
care. I went to many demonstrations after that.

In 1984 i used to live in rajgarh colony which is 500 meter south-west
from the union carbide factory. After the gas i used to have attacks
of acute breathlessness, my eyes burned all the time, for 8 days
i could not leave my bed i was vomiting green stuff all the time.

In 1993 after the communal riots i moved with my family to blue
moon colony. We had no money so i sold off my house in rajgarh colony
and moved to blue moon colony. I did not know that the water there
had poisons in it. It tasted horrible and smelled strong but we
never thought there could be chemicals in it.

I used to carry loads in the vegetable market. After the disaster
I could work for 2 days only and then for next 8 days i would be
sick. Ever since the disaster i could never work enough to support
my family.

My grandson pappu died 2 days after the disaster. He was just days
old when he died. My mother shakina bee died after prolonged suffering
due to the gas. My daughter’s father in law rasoool khan who
lived in chhola died two years after the disaster. Three years back
my grand daughter farheen fell very sick. I do not know what her
sickness was but the doctor said she needed blood transfusion my
wife and son gave her blood but we could not save her she died two
years back. My daughter in law had a miscarriage when she was five
months pregnant.

Because of the poison in the water all in my family are sick. This
is what keeps me worried all the time.

I have lots of expectations from this walk we hope to win our demand
of employment in accordance with health status.

At the time of the disaster I used to work in a beer factory as
a labourer. I got very breathless after the disaster and the contractor
i used to work under told me i was no longer employable. So i had
to move away from my rented house. I went to atal ayub nagar and
put up a small hut. I live in house no. 1319, gali no. 3, atal ayub
nagar.

Ever since i lost my job at the beer factory i have not been able
to find regular work. I work as a casual labourer whenever I can.
Most of the time I am sick, I have trouble breathing.

At the time when the masjid was attacked in Ayodhya, there were
communal riots in Bhopal. The situation was so bad that all of us
to run away to safer places. During that time some people came and
burnt my hut. The money I had saved for the marriage of my children
was also stolen. When we came back after the riots, the whole place
was in ruins. I lost everything I had.

The water that we get from our hand pumps is very bad it smells
and is very difficult to drink or cook. Sometimes a tanker comes
and gives us water. Otherwise we have to go to Arif Nagar to get
water. When we first came to Atal Ayub Nagar we did not know about
the contaminated water, and we used to drink and to cook in this
water. My wife and children do not keep well; they always feel tired
and cannot do any work. Their stomach and heart burns all the time,
there is no appetite. They have rashes all over their body and they
keep scratching all the time. Because they do not keep well they
are not able to go for work, we earn very less. It has become very
difficult to carry on.

I earn about Rs.50/- to Rs.60/-per day on the days I work. When
I am sick then I am not able to earn anything. My elder son also
goes out whenever possible, he earns about a thousand rupees a month,
this is a big help. We have no other source of income.

After i got exposed to the poisonous gases on that night i stayed
for just two days. My people in my village told me not to stay in
Bhopal. They were afraid i will die.so i left Bhopal and went to
my village. I wasn’t there when the government carried out
surveys. So i never got registered as a gas victim and I have not
received any compensation.

I am not able to breathe properly; any strenuous work and I get
breathless. My stomach burns all the time. I do not feel like eating
anything. My heart burns continuously, I feel tired all the time.
I suffer from joint pains.

I have taken part in many rallies organized in Bhopal. I had gone
for the demonstration at Mumbai, we had gone with lots of brooms.

We are very poor people so i can not help people with money. But
in case somebody needs to be taken to the hospital, then I help
out. I also try to keep my surrounding clean with the help of my
neighbours.

I go with the hope that we would get some compensation and that
we would get better medicals treatment. The government should make
the carbide factory clean up the water and soil near the factory.
We should get piped water and not water from the hand pumps. Those
of us who cannot earn a living because of our sickness should be
given suitable jobs. That a house be provided to us who are affected
by the contaminated water. I hope that the demands will be conceded
fast. The government should not say that they would study the problem
and then do something. The struggle has gone too long.

I am not afraid at all. I am in the Padyatra for a good cause.
If I die on the way so be it. But the government should realize
their responsibility.

At the time of the gas leak i used to live in Teela Jamalpura,
Bhopal. In 1995 i moved to Housing Board Colony in Karond.

I used to work as a wood turner but the doctors at Sambhavna Clinic
told me to stay away from dust. Since last year i have stopped working
with wood and now I run a small grocery shop.

I have a son who is 29 years old. He was not given any compensation.
He was exposed badly and was never in good health, he is very weak.
I earn about 70 to 80 rupees per day from the grocery shop. My wife
also stays sick. She sews clothes and earns some money.

I got 70,000/- as compensation. Most of the money was spent on
my treatment. I used to be very sick. I am much better since i have
started taking treatment at the Sambhavna clinic.

I have severe backache. My eyes burn a lot. I also suffer from
breathlessness. I have to use an inhaler several times in a day.

I went for the World Social Forum at Mumbai in December 2003. There
I took part in a street theatre and because i am fair complexioned
I was given the part of Uncle Sam. I have been to several demos
before and after the WSF.

Along with other people in my locality I help out in keeping the
neighbourhood clean.

I used to live in banganga near new market at the time of the disaster.
So though i got exposed to the poisonous gases i wasn’t exposed
so badly. I am more sick from the water than the gas. I came to
annu nagar in 1994. in banganga i had to pay rent for the house.
I thought we would have our own house in annu nagar. I knew nothing
about the poisons in the ground water when i moved in to annu nagar.
At first it was difficult to drink that water and hold it down but
gradually we got used to it. I came to know about the poisons in
2002 when the campaigners came to collect brooms for the demonstration
at the dow headquarters.

Two years after i moved in to annu nagar i started falling sick.
I had severe pain on my side and had to be hospitalized. i was admitted
for three months in Jawahar Lal Nehru Hospital then the doctors
referred me to Hamidia Hospital.

In 1984 I worked as a gate keeper at Rang Mahal Talkies presently
I work as a commercial painter.

I worry about my wife who remains sick often.

If I get work then I earn about Rs. 100.00 a day.

I have not received any compensation.

The day after the gas leak on 5th December 1984 my brother died.
And I was vomiting because of exposure to the gas. Today i suffer
from hyper tension. My blood pressure goes up, I am not able to
see properly and get panic attacks. Nowadays I suffer from pain
in the knees. I am not able to lift weights of even 5 kilos and
I feel very weak all the time.

I am involved with the Bhopal Group for Information and Action.

I have participated in 6 or 7 rallies with the contaminated water
affected people. I had also gone to Delhi in 2005.

When I had gone for demonstration with the water affected people
to the office of the Director I was beaten up by the police.

Even in the middle of the night I go and help whoever is in need.
Seeing the enthusiasm with which we are going to Delhi, I am sure
that the problems faced by the gas victims will be reduced to a
large extent. I have no worries at all about the padyatra.

I am with my mother Guddee Bee for the Padyatra, I live in blue
moon colony with my mother and with my younger brother [kallu] and
sister [shaibee]. I was born in a village near Ganj Basoda and came
to Bhopal last year. I went to school till 5th class but the teacher
didn’t teach much. When I was 10 years old I started working
in a stone quarry near our village. I used to break stones with
a 20 pound hammer. When the stones in the quarry got exhausted there
was no work for me. My father used to do the same work, he died
13 years back when the truck full of stone, in which he was sitting
fell in to a river. After my father’s death my mother went
to Bhopal to live with her sister. The reason I came to Bhopal was
to find some work because I was the eldest in the family and had
to support my mother and brother and sister. Our aunt [nafeesa bee
who is also with the padyatra] used to live in blue moon colony
so I came to live with her. I could find work in building construction
but there’s no regular work. I knew that the water in blue
moon colony was poisoned, it tasted very bad the first time I drank
a sip. It was terrible but I had to drink it for four or five months.
Then I started falling sick, vomiting and stomach ache and dizziness.
Then I stopped drinking the hand pump water I always try hard to
get water from tankers. I have never played any games – would
have loved to play cricket but I don’t even get time to watch
it on tv also we don’t have a tv at home.

I have never joined any demonstration. Never found time for those
even if I wanted to. I could come on this padyatra because there
is no work for me for the next month. What I like about this padyatra
is the people who are with us. Walking with so many people is fun.
My legs hurt from walking but I am getting used to it. I have a
lot of hope that we will win, that we will get piped water.

Bhaskar DasguptaWriting his account to mark the 20th anniversary
of the Bhopal disaster...

It was early morning of a cold 3rd of December, roughly about 20
years now, that we heard the news, that some kind of an industrial
accident had taken place in Bhopal, my home town in India. Bhopal,
right about in the centre of the country, was then a small provincial
town, the administrative capital for the Madhya Pradesh state. Other
than being a state capital, the city could boast of few other things
of importance. Bhopal was named after Raja Bhoj, an 11th century
ruler, whose claim to fame relates to a quote "Kahan Raja Bhoj,
kahan Gangu Teli" alluding to the vast difference and gap between
rulers and ordinary peasants. It is surrounded by a very interesting
set of fascinating places, with amazingly realistic cave paintings
dating back to about 5000 BC; a Hindu Shiv temple which possesses
the tallest stone Shiv lingam and has a huge religious gathering
there every year on the occasion of Shivratri; a huge Buddhist Stupa
with intricate stone carvings at Sanchi, which is supposed to be
the repository of the Buddha's finger.

Bhopal was one of the old princely kingdoms of pre Independence
India which have been ruled by a series of women rulers and there
is a reasonably famous book called as “Begums of Bhopal”
by Shahrayar M. Khan. Bhopal is also famous for having the ex ruler
as Nawab of Pataudi (he was an ex-Indian cricket captain, married
to a very famous Indian actress). It’s a city of two halves,
the old Bhopal, with very narrow streets jammed with taxi's, bicycles,
cars, scooters, pushcarts, donkeys, cows and children; very crowded
with tiny shops selling everything from refrigerators to beaded
velvet purses; garages, houses all almost piled one on top of another,
the call to prayers from the innumerable mosques resounding from
the walls, the food streets with delectable treats such as biryani,
kebabs and curries; the feeling of teeming humanity was in those
streets. Then there was the new Bhopal, a planned city, no industry
to speak off and most of the people being bureaucrats with their
families; living in large government supplied accommodation with
big gardens, very wide roads, very green, full of lakes and one
of the good towns in the cacophony that is India.

It is a very nice place to grow up. There are lots of trees to
climb, pools and rivulets to catch fish in, and small steep sided
hills to climb and trek in, something which a growing boy will love.
One felt connected with the city, a bunch of very good and extremely
smart/intelligent friends to hang out with (no girls I am afraid,
lets not push the story out too much). It was a sleepy little town
which suddenly woke up to being the sad and unfortunate city, where
thousands died after an industrial accident released a poisonous
gas at the Union Carbide plant (now owned by Dow) in the heart of
the city.

It being a cold December night, the heavier than air poison methyl
isocyanate gas which leaked, no wind, very crowded narrow streets,
all combined into a disastrous situation and turned Bhopal into
a gas chamber. Small crowded houses mean that most people sleep
on the floor, the cold weather meant that they were sleeping tightly
wrapped up in blankets with doors and windows tightly closed. The
heavier than air gas meant that it crept along the ground and entered
through every crack and slot in doors and windows. The lack of wind
and narrow streets meant that the poison gas wasn’t able to
be dispersed. Plus the industrial plant (which made pesticides)
was slam bang in the middle of the old city, surrounded with slums
and the aforementioned teeming humanity. Hundreds died in their
sleep, thousands more found their lungs rotting away, couldn’t
breathe, couldn’t see because of the streaming eyes. It was
a scene from hell, but something which we didn’t know when
we set out to college at 7AM.

There were very few students around and our Professor of Chemistry,
Dr. Maini, took the opportunity to talk to us about the use of carbon
to absorb poisons. Be that as it may, by 8AM in the morning, it
was clear that there will be no classes and I made a beeline to
the canteen to quaff the usual cuppa chai. My friend Rajan was also
there and we were discussing the little that we knew about the accident.
We were young lions then and we decided to go over to the scene
of the accident and see if we could possibly help out in any way.
So we hopped on Rajan's bike and off we went to the far side of
the train station and looked around for, well, something to do or
somewhere we could help. We spotted a small team of doctors from
the local main general public hospital and asked them, can we help?
Well, I think we were more a hindrance than a help but be that as
it may, we opened doors, offered water, gave directions, etc.

I do not know about Rajan's memories, but I can only remember few
snippets, a small desolate monkey chained to a tree in one of the
very narrow lanes between mud houses. It survived because it was
higher up in the tree so the heavy methyl isocyanate gas didn’t
affect it that much, but still it yowled with streaming eyes. It
was a startling sight, seeing a small monkey crying. Piles of dead
buffaloes, extremely dusty air, a sense of eerie desolation in some
of the lanes where everybody was dead. The lawns in front of the
Gandhi Medical College were covered with shrouded bodies. One very
poignant scene I will never forget, a child was sitting next to
a shroud, pulling on the arm and softly crying out, "Mother,
why aren’t you waking up?"

The second day, the army stepped in with their heavy equipment
and we could see transporters and mobile cranes breaking houses
to get to the piles of dead cattle to dispose of the carcasses,
to avoid more of a catastrophe. Quite a lot of the houses had their
own buffalos and cows in their courtyards and they had died there.
Obviously, the big army transporters and mobile cranes couldn’t
really enter into the narrow streets, so they called out the tanks
to break in. The heat of the afternoon was bloating the carcasses
and we heard stories of how people had died when they were caught
in the vicinity of some of the carcasses exploding. The bulldozers
on the outskirts of the city were digging huge massive trenches
lined with limestone to bury the cadavers.

The cattle were lucky, they had these machines lift their carcasses
up and bury them quickly. The humans were singularly unfortunate.
With the Muslim injunction to bury the dead on the same day, bodies
went unburied for a long time because entire families were wiped
out. Grave diggers are amongst the poorest of the poor and there
were not that many of them in the first place. Shallow graves were
dug and people buried willy nilly. One of the most poignant photographs
that I remember is of a little baby being buried in a very shallow
grave, its eyes open and a hand trying to cover its body with a
thin layer of soil and stones. Look at the photo at the top left
corner of www.bhopal.net and
then see if it doesn’t rip your heart apart with sadness.

Rajan and I went back the second day and again tried to help out,
giving medical attention (which consisted of giving digestive tablets
and asking people to wash their eyes out with water). Nobody had
a clue about the accident. The junior doctors were bewildered by
the symptoms. So there was actually no real cure to the problem
and the doctors were trying to do something, anything at all, to
try to help the poor sufferers who had started coming up in droves
for help. Let us also not forget that Bhopal is a small town, with
very little medical infrastructure (a point to which I will return
in my next column) so combined with ignorance about the poison gas,
it was really very little anybody could do, but to helplessly watch
them die or suffer.

Well, prescribing digestive tablets and asking people to wash their
eyes out with water we could do, and that's what we did. I do not
remember much from this day, except for one incident when this poor
fellow came up to me and thinking I was a doctor handed over this
little bundle of rags to me and said, "Doctor Sahib, my daughter
is not well, can you please take a look at her?". Rajan was
with the other team and I have to admit that I was absolutely panic
stricken. I looked around for help and my eyes fell on the hopeful
but defeated rheumy eyes of the father. I don’t remember whether
the mother was there, but I don’t think she was. Well, never
say die and I tried to help by blowing air into her mouth, rubbing
her little hands, but within minutes even my untrained eyes could
see that she had gone. I have to confess that I took the coward's
way out and told the father to take her to the hospital. We went
back home by the afternoon and I was hors de combat by the evening,
I had been exposed to the poison gas.

Lord only knows where I caught it from, either from one of the
cattle, or from giving mouth to mouth to the baby or from somewhere
else. Mind you, the gas was still present for 7 days and nights.
So anybody who was there would be exposed to it. This is an indication
of the sheer ignorance everybody had. If this had happened elsewhere,
the city would have been quarantined and/or evacuated! Anyway, it
was touch and go, my parents tried all the medical techniques starting
from Allopathy to Homeopathy. In fact, Ma made a trip to a grave/shrine
of a great Sufi Saint at Fatehpur Sikri to beg for my life. Anyway,
whether it was the quacks or the medicines or the prayers or a combination
of all of them, it worked and I am here to bore you all with this.

This was much more than what happened to the poor benighted gas
sufferers. Much has been written about the inquiry on the accident,
the medical details, the legal situation and the law suits, the
compensation paid and all that. Thousands of these men, women and
children have and are going to keep on suffering because of this
accident. Their lungs have rotted out. They cannot walk 10 steps
without gasping for breath. The women who were widowed were absolutely
wretched because their man had died and left them with no economic
hope. The state government, so significantly stretched for resources,
had to try to help the survivors. Small industrial units, such as
sewing workshops and light manufacturing, were set up. Local medical
centres were built, research centres established to research these
conditions, industrial engineers understood and have spread the
word on safety and storage of these dangerous gases, town planners
have learnt about the dangers of having chemical plants inside the
town levels. The recent EU chemical safety directive has got some
connections to this disaster. The world learnt much from this disaster,
the survivors got something out of it and the general public has
now forgotten all about it. Life goes on. Robert Frost said : “In
three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life - it
goes on.”

Women's Problems
After the incident, no one under 18 years old was registered as
a victim. Yet, at least 200,000 children are estimated to have been
exposed to the gas, half of them girls. As they approach the age
when they should start menstruating, some girls find that they are
experiencing three or four cycles a month, others have only one
period in three months. Many experience pain which more than one
have strikingly described as ‘writhing like a fish out of
water’. It is hard for young girls to talk about such things
and their mothers do not know what to do. We are looking for ways
to treat this without hormonal drugs.

A sample of testimonies taken by the Sambhavna Clinic during one
day in June 1999...

Teenager one
Age 19 years; age at exposure 4 years
Menstruation at 15 years

For the first five to six months my periods were irregular and
without much discomfort. Then I stared getting terrible abdominal
cramps. I get nauseous, giddy and my head aches. I take allopathic
medicines to get relief from pain. My cycles are irregular and there
is a delay of 5-7 days. There have been times when I did not get
my periods for two months. Also there is excessive bleeding, in
the form of clots. During my periods I cannot do any work.

Teenager two
Age 17 years; age at exposure 2 years
Menstruation at 12 years

When I started menstruating it was quite bearable but I have been
having terrible problems for the last three years. I get periods
once in four months. I get irritable, have abdominal pain and I
cannot concentrate on anything. There is pain all over my body.
For days before my periods I writhe in agony like a fish out of
water. My eyes are weak. I am sad most of the time. I do not know
how but I feel that my health problems are my fault and I have to
bear them. I do not know how long. I am told not to mention my problems
to anybody but it is the truth. I used to feel I would rather die
than have a life like this. At last I know I can do something about
it.

Teenager three
Age 17 years; age at exposure 2 years
Menstruation at 12 years

When I started my periods, they were regular for three to four
months but then they stopped for four months. So I took some pills
and got my periods. For the last one year my problems with irregular
cycle are getting worse. I had my periods once in five months. For
the last seven months I have not had my periods at all. I have been
taking medicines but there is no improvement. I hope you can help
me.

Teenager four
Age 21 years; age at exposure 6 years
Menstruation at 15 years

At first my periods seemed okay but after 4 months there was excessive
bleeding. My periods are very irregular and I have severe pain before
I get them. The pain lasts for two to three days. I get fever and
severe headache. I cannot do work or sleep. I cannot eat and just
take tea or milk. When I have excessive bleeding there are clots.
Currently I am taking treatment at the Sambhavna Clinc and I have
got much relief from pain. I have seven sisters and all of them
have similar menstrual problems. Several of my friends at school
have problems too.

More information about the reproductive effects of the disaster
is available here.

The international student campaign to hold Dow
accountable for Bhopal, and its other toxic legacies around the world.
For more information about the campaign, or for problems regarding this
website, contact Shana Ortman, the US Coordinator for the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.
Last updated:
April 30, 2008

WE
ALL LIVE IN
BHOPAL

"The year 2003 was a special
year in the history of the campaign for justice in Bhopal. It was the
year when student and youth supporters from at least 30 campuses in the
US and India took action against Dow Chemical or in support of the demands
of the Bhopal survivors. As we enter the 20th year of the unfolding Bhopal
disaster, we can, with your support, convey to Dow Chemical that the fight
for justice in Bhopal is getting stronger and will continue till justice
is done. We look forward to your continued support and good wishes, and
hope that our joint struggle will pave the way for a just world free of
the abuse of corporate power."